Haiti’s main international airport reopens

The main international airport in Haiti reopened on Wednesday to commercial flights, one month after gangs opened fire on planes. It was the second closing this year because of gang violence.

Major airlines are in a wait-and-see mode on flight resumptions.

Soldiers and police, bolstered by Kenyan police leading a United Nations-backed mission to quell the violence, have boosted security in the area, and a test flight was successful, Haiti’s government said in a statement.

“The resumption of commercial flights marks a turning point for the Haitian economy,” the prime minister’s office said.

However, there were no flights and no passengers at the reopening, with heavily armed police setting up checkpoints by the airport and stopping public transport. An airport parking lot normally packed with hundreds of cars had about several dozen vehicles, the majority belonging to employees.

An older Haitian man arrived at the airport late Wednesday morning, wanting to verify when he could fly out of Port-au-Prince, but there were no airline employees at any counter. He feared for his safety and declined to comment.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States extended a ban on US flights to Haiti’s capital until March 12 out of safety.

The Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince closed in mid-November after gangs opened fire on a Spirit Airlines flight that was preparing to land, striking a flight attendant who suffered minor injuries. Other commercial planes were hit that day, prompting Spirit, JetBlue and American Airlines to cancel their flights to Haiti. A day later, the FAA banned US airlines from flying to the Caribbean country for 30 days.

The airport in Port-au-Prince had closed for nearly three months earlier this year after gangs launched coordinated attacks on key government infrastructure starting in late February. Gangs now control about 85 per cent of the capital.

It wasn’t immediately clear which flights would resume or when.

A spokesman for Spirit told The Associated Press on Wednesday that its flights to Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien, where Haiti’s other international airport is located, are suspended “until further notice”. A spokeswoman for American Airlines said they are monitoring the situation and will evaluate resuming flights to Port-au-Prince for late 2025. A spokesperson for JetBlue did not respond to a message seeking comment.

For the past month, the only international airport operating in Haiti was the one in the northern coastal town of Cap-Haitien, but travelling there by land is dangerous since gangs control the main roads leading out of Port-au-Prince and are known for opening fire on public transport.

The few who could afford to escape the surge of gang violence in the capital this past month paid thousands of dollars for private air transport to Cap-Haitien.

The violence, coupled with alleged threats and aggression from Haiti’s National Police, had forced Doctors Without Borders to suspend activities for the first time in its history in the Caribbean country in late November. The aid group announced Wednesday that it had partially resumed activities in Port-au-Prince. However, transportation of patients has not restarted, and one of its hospitals remains closed.

Some 5,000 people have been reported killed in Haiti this year, including more than 100 in a recent massacre in a gang-controlled community in Port-au-Prince.

On Tuesday night, another gang killed more than 20 people in Petite-Rivière in Haiti’s central Artibonite region, according to Radio Méga, who interviewed human rights attorney Rosy Auguste Ducéna.

AP